BUFFALO TWP — A little over a year ago, Freeport Area School District’s board voted 5-4 to approve a hotly contested high school renovation proposal, setting up the district to spend just over $55 million total.

Fourteen months later, the district is getting closer to shovels in the ground and walls being torn down.

At the board’s meeting Wednesday, Sept. 2, school officials, architecture firm HHSDR and construction manager Massaro Construction Group presented a timeline for the work. Bid openings are expected to take place Nov. 11, with bids expected to be awarded to contractors Dec. 9.

On-site demolition and construction is expected to start on Jan. 7, 2027, and will last for just over two calendar years.

“It’s going to be a long process, but we’re getting there,” said Vince Ordinario, of HHSDR.

The project will be broken down into “10 or 11” individual phases, Ordinario said, with crews focusing on groups of classrooms and parts of the building one at a time to limit the impact on students.

For example, Phase 1 will include an area of science rooms. Phase 2 will include the auditorium and music area. Phase 3 will include the tech-ed area. The various phases will happen partially while students are in session and partially during the summer months.

“We don’t have a lot of swing space to move students during the renovation but we can take a group of seven or eight classrooms at a time, turn those over, get those finished, move the students back into a finished space and free up another seven or eight classrooms,” Ordinario said.

Some details of the renovation project were highlighted in HHSDR’s presentation. They included the outside of several entrances being modernized, including a new security vestibule and brick staining to improve the conditions and appearance of the building’s outside walls.

Plans also include tinted windows Ordinario said will have energy and security benefits, improved hallway corridors with wider lockers and an updated gymnasium and auditorium. The completed auditorium’s capacity, roughly 450, will be smaller than now, due mostly to ADA ramps being installed.

“Remember, we approved a renovation in place. A lot of what you see is what you get. I know there wasn’t many, we weren’t able to have many big and new places because it’s a very economical project, but we believe it’s one that we wanted, as well as one the community deserves,” Freeport superintendent Ian Magness said.

HHSDR and Massaro officials said they are confident bidders will be attracted to the high school renovation project, citing the time of the year it will go out to bid.

Dan Kiefer, of Massaro, said he believes putting it out after the summer, when contractors are focused on other projects, will help. The length of the project, especially as other school districts wrap up their own renovation plans, will stick out.

“It should be a good bid day with these numbers together. This is going to be a good job,” Kiefer said.